


"Cute"? -Who's- "cute"? *with a narrow-eyed glare*

by josephina_x



Series: Clexmas True Love Drabble Fest 2014 [1]
Category: Smallville
Genre: (Rated PG otherwise), (then), Bullying, Chocolate, Excelsior Prep, Friendship, Gen, Misunderstandings, Old School, Rating for Language, Season 1, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-11
Updated: 2014-02-11
Packaged: 2018-01-12 01:01:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1180041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josephina_x/pseuds/josephina_x
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lex has two Valentine's Days that are notable. The first one, plainly, sucked. Because <i>Oliver</i>. (Asshole.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	"Cute"? -Who's- "cute"? *with a narrow-eyed glare*

**Author's Note:**

> Title: "Cute"? _Who's_ "cute"? *with a narrow-eyed glare*  
>  For the True Love Drabble 'Fest 2014  
> Prompt #1: Cute  
> Summary: Lex has two Valentine's Days that are notable. The first one, plainly, sucked. Because _Oliver_. (Asshole.)  
>  AN: There's only a little Clark+Lex in here, so I thought that posting to AO3 with the link for the full story might be better than blatantly posting to LJ's Clexmas. (Because "ewwww, Ollie and Lex!", obviously ^_^;; ) Only the Clark+Lex snippet at the end of the piece is [posted at the LJ page](http://clexmas.livejournal.com/91301.html?view=1024165#t1024165).  
> AN2:  
> I'd just like to point out that (pretending that they thought the retcon through more than the likely did... ;) in season 7, they make it clear that Lex didn't remember Veritas before Chloe healed him after the gunshot wound to the head and the whole 'brain-diving' procedure (7x12 Fracture), or being friends with Patricia Swann when they were little. In fact, it's pretty clear that he didn't remember ever being friends with any of the Veritas kids -- including Oliver Queen, _who he was friends with and used to even play Warrior Angel with_ \-- before being healed back to life by Chloe (7x15 Veritas). They also make it clear in season 1 that Lex doesn't really remember having asthma (he ends up looking over his old medical records after something with Chloe brings it up, if I remember correctly), which is kind of unusual if you think about it.
> 
> So, if Lex and Oliver used to be friends, and then the meteor shower happened and Lex lost all his hair, and then they started attending Excelsior Prep together... how would Oliver have taken Lex's memory loss, with Lex not remembering him. Would Oliver have even known about the memory loss? Because that would be a weakness that could be exploited terribly, and Luthors aren't supposed to have, or ever show, weaknesses...
> 
> So let's say that Oliver felt like he got snubbed by Lex on the first day of school, because Lex didn't remember them being friends (so why would he act especially nice towards Oliver, instead of treating him like a common stranger?), and then while Oliver was busy feeling all hurt about it, Lex made friends with Duncan. How would we expect Oliver to react to _that?_
> 
> *evil grin*
> 
> ...This is my headcanon for what happened between Oliver and Lex's playgroups during Veritas meetings and their meeting up again at Excelsior Prep for the first time since the meteor shower, by the way :)
> 
> (--Not that I condone bullying in any way, shape, or form. Oliver is kind of being an insecure yet good-intentioned **idiot** in this fic. ...Which, admittedly, is pretty much dead-on canon-wise O:-)

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lex ducked under the stairwell looking hunted. All the damn teasing about Warrior Angel had been bad enough, but this-- this--

He kicked the wall several times, scuffing his dress shoes, then chucked the candy-box at it so hard that the lid popped off, chocolate strewn everywhere.

Lex stood there, ramrod-straight with perfect posture, fists clenched at his sides, white-knuckled, shaking in place. He tilted his chin upwards imperiously and stared down at the box. ---Had it been Alden? Geoffrey? Or, even worse...

He felt a hand slap his baseball cap up off of his head before his eyes had truly registered the quick motion in front of his face.

Lex recoiled violently, almost staggering into the wall as he wheeled, shoulders and hands coming up in defense.

Casually leaning against the side wall was his assailant, loose-limbed and smirking.

"Hey," drawled Lex's greatest adversary at Excelsior Prep to-date: Oliver Queen.

Lex scowled at the jerk.

"You think this is funny, do you?" Lex hissed out through clenched teeth, taking a moment to bend down and retrieve his cap. He made sure not to turn his back on Queen as he did so; he'd learned that the hard way.

"Not really," Oliver said, not losing the smirk, as Lex dusted off his cap with abrupt, jerky motions. "What, you didn't like the chocolate? Not rich enough for you?"

Lex pulled the cap down over his stupidly-bald head to hide it, which he _loathed_ , but only a little less than he _loathed_ Oliver Queen. He'd promise to walk around without wearing hats and suffer in silence _forever_ , if only Oliver would just keel over and **die** like the rich, smug bastard he was.

Trust _Oliver Queen_ to find a way to make a dig at both him and Duncan by buying the cheapest 'chocolate' he could find, and then inflicting it on him with no note.

"Screw you," Lex thought rebelliously, then swayed away from Oliver as, shockingly, Oliver actually advanced on him.

"What the hell did you say?" Oliver demanded, looming large over him.

Then Lex realized that he'd muttered that out loud.

Lex felt his eyes go wide, and he forced himself to firm up and stand his ground.

...Then he remembered that he was in a stairwell, and that no-one else was around to see him, whether he cringed away in fear or not.

Then he remembered that _they_ were in a stairwell, and that no-one else was around to see them, whether Oliver pounded him into the floor or not.

Lex ducked forward and to the left, bolting past Queen.

He got his right arm near pulled out of its socket and shoved into the far wall for his trouble.

Lex tried not to wheeze, when Oliver let go of his arm, clenched his fist in his shirt instead, and slammed his back into the wall again, hard, knocking the breath out of him.

"Y'know," Oliver drawled out, "when somebody gives you a present, it's usually polite to say 'thank you'," Lex was told.

 _No no no,_ Lex thought, shuddering as he heard this, caught between the cold wall and Oliver's fist, his face so close that Lex could smell his breath when he talked.

But Oliver wasn't letting go, and he wasn't going to. Not until Lex did what he said, and Lex knew this.

Lex tried to breathe normally, but even though he was getting his breath back slowly, the sick feeling in his chest only grew over time.

"Well?!" Oliver said impatiently, shaking him once.

Lex felt himself wince, turning his head away from Queen, and couldn't stop it. Didn't even try. The only person who could see him was Queen, anyway, and it wasn't like Queen didn't already know what a coward he was.

He was shaken once more before he choked out, "Th-thank you," through his closing-up throat.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Oliver pull away slightly, and him expression grow grim.

He stared forward deconsolately at freedom, wishing Oliver would just let him go. He doubted he would, though -- Queen obviously hadn't expected him to give in so easily, had expected to get a little more _fun_ out of him.

Then Lex staggered and fell to his hands and knees as Oliver shoved him forward, out of the back of the stairwell awning.

Lex pushed himself forward, and turned as he got to his feet, no time for shock.

Oliver was just standing there, unmoving. Watching him.

Lex felt a swirl of sickness and shame rise in his chest that he couldn't push down.

"Why did you do it?!" he demanded of Queen, pushing back tears, his hands unconsciously curling into loose fists.

Oliver stood there for a moment, motionless.

And then he gave Lex an easy smile.

"Hey, couldn't let the cutest guy in class go without something on Valentine's Day, right?" he was told.

Lex found himself shaking with the effort not to leap forward and punch Queen in the face, because god, this was just typical. Queen did something completely horrible to him, in such a way that it _looked_ like it wasn't to everybody else, and if Lex dared speak up and complain or get even for it, it would make _him_ look like the bad guy. Not Queen. Never Queen.

 _Just walk away,_ he told himself. _Just walk away._ Because Queen had a good foot of height on him, and at least twice the muscle. Trying to rearrange Queen's face would only get him stomped, and he couldn't pull it off, anyway. It wasn't worth it.

Lex stood there shaking, for another long moment, then turned and walked away.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Oliver watched Lex stomp off, and pushed down the anger.

Then he turned and stared down at the chocolates strewn about under the landing, and grimaced.

He bent down and started scooping up pieces of chocolate -- broken, nasty, and otherwise -- and started shoving them back into the box. He didn't care that he was shoving them in so hard that the plastic crinkled out of shape around them.

Why did he even bother anyway? When Alden or Geoffrey gave him shit, that would only annoy or exasperate him, but things that Lex did? They just made him want to punch Lex in the gut, to make him feel what Oliver did when he did that.

Because they'd used to be _friends_. And then Lex didn't call or write or _anything_ for **months** , and the next time he saw him, Lex was fucking bald and refusing to act like he knew him.

Now, running around bald Oliver could forgive, no matter how wince-worthy it was to everybody else. Oliver had seen him with red hair, and knew how much Lex had hated it. If Lex wanted to cut it all off, fine -- he wasn't gonna complain. It was his hair. He could do what he wanted with it. Like Oliver had been friends with his stupid hair!

But no, he acted all ashamed of it, having the guts to shave it all off, and kept wearing that stupid hat like he was trying to hide or something. And he kept hanging around with _Duncan_ , god, what the hell? Was Lex _trying_ to get beaten up? Hanging out with the social pariah, who looked down on everybody else who had more money than him -- except Lex, because Duncan would have had to be completely stupid not to like Lex, and he was here on scholarship, so he had to be at least a little smart -- and stupidly refused to make friends with anyone else because he was poor and they were rich?

Oliver shoved the last piece of chocolate in, then crammed the lid down on the beaten-up box. He snorted. Like _that_ made Dumb Duncan better than everybody else? He wasn't the only smart kid attending -- everybody else had had to pass the entrance exams, too, not just him!

God, if Lex would just dump the loser who was dragging him down, then Oliver could hang out with him again. Oliver could introduce him to everybody. He'd have a ton of friends. But Lex refused to drop Duncan, even though the guy was practically social poison. --Why did Lex have to make things so hard?!

Oliver grabbed up the box of cheap chocolate, all but crushing it in his grip as he stood. The semester had been in full swing for awhile now, and Lex was _still_ suicidally refusing to play ball with everybody else. Oliver's guardians had warned him about how Excelsior Prep was like a microcosm of the business world -- that the friends you made determined your success, just like business partners, and to choose wisely when he could, but better to choose badly than not choose at all. They'd also told him that the first week was crucial.

...And they had been right. Oliver had watched it happen in dazed horror, first the upperclassmen then right down to their grade, and then had to force himself to jump in in a frenzy, scared for Lex, because while Oliver was good at this stuff, Lex sure wasn't. Lex was more the artsy-sciencey geeky type. He needed somebody like Oliver to look out for him, or he'd get eaten alive. And Oliver wanted to help. But Lex stubbornly kept refusing his help.

All Lex had to do was turn his back on Duncan once -- just once! -- in front of him and Alden and Geoffrey, and he and Oliver could be friends again and Oliver could _finally_ fix things. Two unbiased witnesses would be more than enough for the school. And Oliver kept trying to give Lex every chance he could, and would keep on doing it, because that was what friends did for each other. No matter what it took.

Even if Lex was acting like they'd never been friends, ever. Whatever it took.

But Oliver was getting more and more worried, and it was literally driving him up the wall that Lex was refusing to cooperate. So Oliver had stepped things up, even though it made him feel sick, and pushing Lex harder and harder, and it _just wasn't working_ , and it made Oliver want to punch Lex for real.

And now they were into their third week, and alliances had already been formed. If Lex didn't drop Duncan, and soon, Oliver wouldn't be able to help him out anymore -- he'd have firmly cemented himself at the bottom rung of the social ladder for the next seven years of school. ...If he hadn't already.

No. No, damnit. When Lex finally came to his sense, Oliver would **make** it work. Somehow.

Oliver strode out from under the stairwell, and shoved the crumpled box into the nearest trash bin, fuming. Because, damn it, he'd been _trying_ to be nice. Lex didn't have a girlfriend outside of school, and it wasn't like Duncan would've gotten Lex anything; he didn't have the money for it. Oliver had risked a lot even trying to sneak in and leave it for Lex anonymously. And had he been the least bit thankful at all? Didn't Lex get it? It would've been worse if he hadn't gotten anything at all!

And it wasn't like Oliver could just come out and explain everything to Lex, out in front of everyone. ...Not that trying to do that in private had worked the first time, or the second, or the third. And he couldn't stage something either: Lex was shit at lying, and people had to know that he wanted it. It couldn't be just some power play where Lex dumped Duncan openly and was still able to be friends with him in secret, or work the system from the inside to try and get people not to mess with Duncan as much, even though the little shit hardly deserved it. And Oliver _couldn't_ bring that up as an option, because Lex might be shit at coming up with sneaky ideas, but damn he was scary good at pulling them off once he had them ...when it didn't involve Lex trying to lie to peoples' faces, because he was shit at that. He'd try it, it'd be epic fail, and they'd all go down in a firery ball of doom.

Oliver stomped off to the workout room, because he needed to punch something, and he might still be mad, but he wasn't sure anymore if it really ought to be Lex who deserved the punching. Because was it really that bad that Oliver hadn't left a note with the box? Was that why Lex was so mad? --But if anybody had found out that he was trying to be nice to Lex right now, when Lex was friends with Duncan, Oliver's social rep would've taken an unrecoverable hit. _Maybe_ Alden and Geoffrey wouldn't have dropped him like a piece of dung, but they wouldn't want to hang out with him like they had been, all the time, because nobody else at school would be nearly as forgiving, and they needed to be out on their own lookout; Oliver got that. But if that happened, Oliver wouldn't have witnesses for when he finally got Lex to see some sense, and he wouldn't be able to get Lex out!

Oliver didn't even bother with wrapping his hands -- he just walked right up to a bag and started punching. Argh! Stupid Lex! Stupid Lex and his stupid morally-righteous Duncan with his stupid, stupid face! Refusing to do anything that might help increase his social standing at school _on purpose_ and dragging Lex down with him. Oliver could just about _swear_ that Duncan was doing it on purpose now, just to spite him. He'd even tried going and talking to Duncan once, alone, and all but begged him to do _something_ so Lex wouldn't be stuck at the bottom of the dung heap with him, after demanding that he give Lex back hadn't worked. Duncan hadn't cared; he'd sneered at him and seemed downright _happy_ about it!

Stupid Duncan. Oliver punched the punching bag again, three hard times in succession, because he couldn't punch Duncan instead. He couldn't even punch Duncan in the face, because the last time he'd gotten angry and hauled off and tried to do that, Lex had gotten between them, and--

Rrgh! Oliver slammed a knee into the free-hanging bag, then turned away and paced around in a small, inconsistent circle.

Why did Lex have to pretend like they'd never been friends? Why the hell did he look down on him like Duncan did, like he was lower than dirt, no matter what he did? And still going by 'Lex was just a slap in the face -- _Oliver_ had come up with that nickname for him. Oliver had been the one to introduce him to Warrior Angel. Yeah, Oliver was getting too old for superheroes and comic books -- they wre supposed to grow up at school, get ready for _real things_ like running their companies when they grew up -- but Duncan had _stolen_ that from him. Alexander told Duncan to call him _Lex_. Only _friends_ got to call Alexander Lex, and Oliver wasn't a _friend_. _Alexander_ talked about Warrior Angel with Duncan, shared comic books with him. _Oliver_ didn't get to talk to him about _cool_ and _interesting_ things like that, let alone anything _important_.

He whirled on the bag and punched it hard again, and screamed.

_**What the hell did Duncan have that he didn't!?!?** _

Oliver swayed in place, then dropped down into a crouch to breathe. He had to keep it together. Lunch was almost over. Anybody could walk in on him at any time.

\-- _Alexander_ wouldn't give Oliver the time of day, so Oliver called him _Lex_ still, every chance he could get. Because it pissed Lex off, just as much as it pissed off Oliver to see Lex's lip curl up in distaste every time Oliver came near, and if Lex wanted to hurt him, Oliver would hurt him right back. _That_ was _fair_.

That was fair, but he couldn't just give up on Lex. He couldn't just leave Lex alone with Duncan and _let_ Lex get hurt. If Lex thought _this_ was bad... if he thought what Oliver was doing was "bullying"...

Oliver got up, hauled off, and slammed a fist into the bag again, and leaned against it panting. Lex didn't have a clue. Oliver had already seen what some of the upperclassmen did to the lowest in their own classes. If Oliver didn't single him out, then somebody else would, and they wouldn't just stop at annoying Lex and Duncan by flipping over their books and papers from time to time. They'd do something to **really hurt** him.

And Oliver couldn't let that happen.

All Lex had to do was give up on Duncan. Oliver couldn't be friends with Lex until he did.

Because he wasn't like Lex. He wasn't smart enough to get by on his own without anybody else.

...And he wouldn't strong enough to protect the three of them together if he did the completely stupid thing and did what Lex was doing, even if he somehow managed to magically find a way to stomach that fact that he'd have to be friends with _Duncan_ , too, if he did that. He couldn't do what Lex was doing. He just _couldn't_. Not even if he wanted to, which he didn't. Life would be _hell_ for them at their boarding school, and he just couldn't do that.

Not to mention that what Lex was doing was _stupid_ and _wrong_.

No, he wasn't gonna give up on Lex. He'd just have to wait. Someday, Lex would come to his senses, and Oliver would be there for him. He would.

That was what friends did.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Suffice it to say, that because of Lex's previous history with Valentine's Day chocolates from idiot-jerks who shall remain nameless ( ~~Oliver- _fucking_ -Queen~~), when Lex was brazenly handed a box of small, cheap chocolates by Clark at the Talon on his first Valentine's Day since moving to Smallville, Lex did not take it very well.

After having cleaned up the aftermath of the chocolates strewn halfway across the Talon, resulting from when the box had practically _exploded_ when it had hit the far wall, Lex had finally calmed down enough to not be so huffy about getting chocolates on Valentine's Day that he was actually somewhat coherent in grumbling out what he had thought had been so wrong about it.

This had probably been helped by the fact that, after his initial outburst and subsequent irritated drafting to cleaning crew status by Lana _to help pick up his own mess_ , when Pete had walked in and heard about what had happened, his initial response to Lex's reaction had been, "Shit, man, if you didn't want them that bad, you could've given them to _me_. The one Clark gave me was smaller than that!"

This had left Lex blinking, and then incredibly chastened because, prior to Pete's announcement, Lex had been operating under the impression that Chloe had told Clark about something that they must have both thought was funny, snickered about behind Lex's back, and then promptly decided to re-enact as a joke. And that he was going to have to kill someone for the offense (preferably Chloe or Oliver, because he kind of liked Clark, and Lex had learned awhile ago that killing friends was something he never wanted to do ever again; Clark had probably been misled anyway).

"Well, she's got an entire file cabinet full of god-knows-what on me, Clark!" Lex protested, forcing himself to leave his arms dangling at his side and _not_ cross them in front of him defensively. "I wouldn't have put it past her to have managed to track down and tackle Oliver Queen at some point about our prep school days, and how funny he thought it was to give Valentine's chocolate to 'the cutest boy in school'," Lex parroted derisively, still hearing the bastard's voice echoing those words in his head.

"...Wait, you went to school with Oliver Queen?" he heard a cheery voice belonging to a hyperactive young blond reporter pipe up behind him.

"Oh, goddamnit," Lex muttered under his breath, and hid his head in his hands.

~*~*~*~*~*~


End file.
